Are We Correct To Use The Word Suspect?

[PaulB]

A person can start off as a person of interest, and then can become a suspect when there is sufficient facts or evidence to put him under proper suspicion.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

And, as you are repeatedly asked but never answer, how do you know that there weren't 'sufficient facts or evidence' when you don't know what the evidence was?

The point you keep avoiding is that the quality of the evidence is what distinguishes a 'person of interest' from a 'suspect', but when you don't know what the evidence was, you can't make that distinction.

[John G]

It's worth pointing out that "person of interest " has no meaning in English law. It is a term used by law enforcement in America (first known use was in 1986), basically because the police risked being sued for defamation if they labelled someone a suspect, i.e. because the term could be regarded as inferring "perpetrator".

[PaulB]

That’s a definition the police would use but we aren’t police. According to that definition there are no current suspects. This achieves nothing. The dictionary definition is more appropriate for us I.e. a suspect is some who is suspected.

What concerns us to how seriously the suspects were regarded by the policemen back then, not how policemen would define them today, especially when we are for the most part completely ignorant of the evidence on which the policemen back then based their suspicions. As said, Littlechild described Tumblety as a suspect and he thought he was a good one. We have no idea why he thought that, so who are we to suggest that Tumblety wasn't a 'suspect'. Anderson thought 'Kosminski' was Jack the Ripper and Macnaghten thought pretty much the same about Druitt. we have no right to relegate them to a 'person of interest'.

[John G]

In fact, to expand on my previous post, person of interest doesn't even have a legal meaning in America. Thus, in Hatfill v Ashcroft the Attorney General, John Ashcroft, was sued by Dr Hatfill for referring to him as a person of interest in respect of the anthrax attack cases. His attorney argued that, "the term [person of interest] is not recognised in law or criminal procedure and that Ashcroft did not have the right 'to preside over the public shredding of [Hatfill"s] life. This is un-American. Mr Ashcroft owes Dr Hatfill an apology.'"

[Trevor Marriott]

What concerns us to how seriously the suspects were regarded by the policemen back then, not how policemen would define them today, especially when we are for the most part completely ignorant of the evidence on which the policemen back then based their suspicions. As said, Littlechild described Tumblety as a suspect and he thought he was a good one. We have no idea why he thought that, so who are we to suggest that Tumblety wasn't a 'suspect'. Anderson thought 'Kosminski' was Jack the Ripper and Macnaghten thought pretty much the same about Druitt. we have no right to relegate them to a 'person of interest'.

Well by the way any tom dick or harry found in Whitechapel either fitting a description or acting suspiciously was detained and taken to a police station, I would say they didnt have much of a clue at what defined a real suspect.

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[Trevor Marriott]

And, as you are repeatedly asked but never answer, how do you know that there weren't 'sufficient facts or evidence' when you don't know what the evidence was?

The point you keep avoiding is that the quality of the evidence is what distinguishes a 'person of interest' from a 'suspect', but when you don't know what the evidence was, you can't make that distinction.

But you can draw and are entitled to an inference based on all the facts surrounding the memo, and the lack of anything to remotely corroborate his suspicions.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Trevor Marriott]

And, as you are repeatedly asked but never answer, how do you know that there weren't 'sufficient facts or evidence' when you don't know what the evidence was?

The point you keep avoiding is that the quality of the evidence is what distinguishes a 'person of interest' from a 'suspect', but when you don't know what the evidence was, you can't make that distinction.

i am not trying to be pedantic but we have a suspect list of 200 "suspects" now they cant all be suspects as defined can they, and they cant all have been the killer so there has to be some categorization.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Trevor Marriott]

In fact, to expand on my previous post, person of interest doesn't even have a legal meaning in America. Thus, in Hatfill v Ashcroft the Attorney General, John Ashcroft, was sued by Dr Hatfill for referring to him as a person of interest in respect of the anthrax attack cases. His attorney argued that, "the term [person of interest] is not recognised in law or criminal procedure and that Ashcroft did not have the right 'to preside over the public shredding of [Hatfill"s] life. This is un-American. Mr Ashcroft owes Dr Hatfill an apology.'"

But the term prime suspect was not around in 1888 yet today the term is banded about to describe prime suspects who by definition are no more than likely suspects or even just persons of interest

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[PaulB]

Well by the way any tom dick or harry found in Whitechapel either fitting a description or acting suspiciously was detained and taken to a police station, I would say they didnt have much of a clue at what defined a real suspect.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

What do you mean by 'didn't have much of a clue at what defined a real suspect'? Did they define suspects in 1888? I don't think they did, did they?

[PaulB]

But you can draw and are entitled to an inference based on all the facts surrounding the memo, and the lack of anything to remotely corroborate his suspicions.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

The lack of corroboration isn't surprising given the paucity of official documentation, as has been explained quite a few times. One can indeed base a conclusion on an assessment of the memorandum, but not when all you're going to do is cite a few errors that have no bearing on whether or not information implicating Druitt was received by the police, and otherwise wildly speculate that the information was hearsay, suggest that hearsay is unreliable and untrustworthy, fantasise that it was mentioned to Macnaghten over a sherry, claim that Macnaghten never told anyone about the information, and on that basis conclude that the memorandum isn't worth the paper it's written on.

[PaulB]

But the term prime suspect was not around in 1888 yet today the term is banded about to describe prime suspects who by definition are no more than likely suspects or even just persons of interest

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

As explained to you a thousand times, 'prime suspect' is not used in the sense employed by the police. 'Prime' is a word that means 'best', as Amazon uses it for example, and a 'prime suspect' simply means the best or main or leading suspect. 'Person of interest' has no similar currency outside the police usage.

Furthermore, a Ripperologist might refer to, say, 'Kosminski' as the 'prime suspect', meaning he's the best suspect we have, or that he is the suspect that needs to be researched first, but the term shouldn't be applied to the police of 1888. Kosminski was not, as far as we know, the prime suspect in 1888 or after.

[Herlock Sholmes]

i am not trying to be pedantic but we have a suspect list of 200 "suspects" now they cant all be suspects as defined can they, and they cant all have been the killer so there has to be some categorization.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Yes they can if we use the simple dictionary definition that a suspect is someone that is or has been suspected. Whether they were guilty or not is irrelevant. One of them might have been guilty or none of them might have been guilty. And so we form our own conclusions based on our own interpretations and thought processes. If someone has been suspected and it hasn’t been proven that they were innocent then they remain a suspect however unlikely the individual or the consensus might feel.

If you want categorisation then what criteria would you use to decide who is a suspect and who is a person of interest? Could you give us a few examples of suspects and persons of interest in your own opinion?

[PaulB]

i am not trying to be pedantic but we have a suspect list of 200 "suspects" now they cant all be suspects as defined can they, and they cant all have been the killer so there has to be some categorization.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Do you know of any terms by which the police categorised suspects in 1888? If not, all two hundred names in that file must have been suspects, mustn't they?

[rjpalmer]

In fact, to expand on my previous post, person of interest doesn't even have a legal meaning in America. Thus, in Hatfill v Ashcroft the Attorney General, John Ashcroft, was sued by Dr Hatfill for referring to him as a person of interest in respect of the anthrax attack cases. His attorney argued that, "the term [person of interest] is not recognised in law or criminal procedure and that Ashcroft did not have the right 'to preside over the public shredding of [Hatfill"s] life. This is un-American. Mr Ashcroft owes Dr Hatfill an apology.'"

I can't vouch for its accuracy, but the "Wikipedia" entry on the word "suspect" suggests that journalists used the term "suspect" and "perpetrator" so interchangeably and so inaccurately, that someone eventually came up with the term "person of interest." This same confusion/misuse could also explain why some people here believe the term "suspect" implies guilt, when in reality, it shouldn't. Indeed, in one Victorian dictionary it specifically states that a suspect is a person against whom there is weak evidence; the same sense of weakness or insufficiency survives in, for instance, the phrase "your claim is rather suspect, old chap"

[harry]

If we cannot come to an agreement on the use of the terms, we will never make headway.While the term 'Person of interest' was not used in that form in 1888,it is clear that police then,in describing persons who came to their attention,make a clear distinction between suspects,and persons in whom they believed were of just interest.
My understanding of suspect,taught by persons who knew,is a person against whom an element of guilt can be established.Such as,if one person is accused of being a liar,a lie is an element that must be proven to have been made by that person.If a person is accused of being a serial killer,an element of murder must be proven against that person.Now you can argue what constitutes an element in the ripper killings,but having a mere suspicion is not one.